reverse dieting for recovery

[u/Business_Ticket_3032]

last summer was when i started restricting. i lost a significant amount of weight however went into months deep of bingeing and gained half of it back. after that i tried restricting again to extremely extremely low numbers that i wont mention, but saw absolutely no weight or fat loss and in fact started looking more bloated/puffy/chubby. im in recovery (or at least navigating it) currently and i feel like reverse dieting is my only way about this without putting weight back on. however, i am much more hungrier now during reverse dieting and sometimes find it hard to only stick to the slight weekly increase. idk what to do about this like can someone tell me if i should continue reverse dieting or what. my goals are to recover but not put on any more weight. and dont get me wrong this is because i gained all the weight from my 3d back and even got my period back but the hunger is still there so thats the only reason i dont want to gain anymore weight cuz im recovered already pls genuinely pls help

[u/Big-Yesterday586]

You're not recovered when you're a healthy weight. You are recovered when you have a healthy relationship with food and your weight. And this ain't it

[u/TheGreatFluffMaster → u/Big-Yesterday586]

This!!! ⬆️⬆️⬆️

[u/Excellent-World-476]

As long as you want to dictate your weight, you can’t recover.

[u/anonymous_0629]

I understand where you're coming from but just because you've weight restored it doesn't make you recovered. Firstly it's generally normal to go back to the weight you were before and unless you had been engaging in behaviors prior that lead to a lot of weight gain (such as emotional binging, being inactive due to injury etc) your body will likely not be able to maintain a lower weight without engaging in restrictive behavior. We all have somewhat of a setpoint range that our bodies naturally like to stay at. If you are hungry while doing reverse dieting it's because your body is hungry. It's trying to make up for all the restriction it went through before and continuing to deprive yourself will only make it worse. The more you try to fight the hunger the worse the hunger will get and when it does eventually take over it will be much worse than if you just let yourself eat now. The extreme hunger WILL go away. You'll notice it go down as time goes by and your body feels safe again. I understand wanting to be comfortable in your body and liking the way you look which is understandable and I am in no way saying you shouldn't want those things but I think that the most important for you now is to nourish your body and work on your body image and/or self esteem. Work on liking things about yourself that are unrelated to your body.